


Blooming

by marchstarling



Category: Loveless
Genre: Blood, Developing Relationship, Dom/sub Undertones, Future Fic, M/M, Past Abuse, Relationship Study, Trauma Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24956569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchstarling/pseuds/marchstarling
Summary: As a kid, Ritsuka knew there were certain things a person should and shouldn’t strive to be. For instance: they should try to be self-sufficient, good and fair, reliable. They shouldn’t want to be talked down to, or told what to do, or desire subservience. These were things to escape, not covert.As a nebulous, liminal thing cresting at the edges of adulthood, he understands that it is impossible to make people want to be a certain way. Sometimes, you have to meet them on their own terms, or not at all.Not at all was never an option, when it came to Soubi.
Relationships: Agatsuma Soubi/Aoyagi Ritsuka
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	Blooming

The blood blooming on Soubi’s wrists becomes noticeable as his jacket slips from his shoulders and onto the coat rack in the apartment’s entrance. 

If Ritsuka were a year younger, he might exclaim: ‘Soubi, you’re bleeding!’ or, if half a year younger: ‘Soubi, you’re bleeding.’ He knows better, now. Soubi is almost always bleeding, one way or another. It’s strange when he’s not. That’s cause for recognition. Drawing endless attention to an obvious hurt doesn’t have any cause. 

Soubi sets their med-kit on the kitchen table. He’s pulled out a cotton swab and is preparing to dose the thing with antibacterial fluid when Ritsuka says, quite clearly, “Stop.” 

“The cut on Ritsuka’s face--”

“Don’t test me. I’m not in the mood. Not ever, really, but especially not now.” 

Soubi is sluggishly gushing red, wounds a gaping maw to Ritsuka’s dripping scratch. Ritsuka doesn’t have time for this. He takes the swab roughly from Soubi’s fingers, diligently applies the fluid, and then holds his hand out for Soubi’s wrist. Soubi offers it, and the agitation in Ritsuka settles into its usual background hum. 

Soubi can’t help himself, he knows. It’s because they came together wrong. If Soubi had been younger, Ritsuka taller and stronger, away from his mother and unwilling to let Soubi pretend to be wise, then this turbulence wouldn’t exist. Soubi wouldn’t desire to be put in his place, because he would have felt where he belonged the moment he met Ritsuka: at Ritsuka’s side, one pace behind. As it is, Ritsuka didn’t have a place for anybody when he met Soubi, and so Soubi is like this. 

“Turn,” Ritsuka says, tapping on the bone of his wrist, and Soubi turns it. Red fills the white swab; the swab balloons out, as if gorging itself.

Blood on Soubi had always disturbed him as a child, because Soubi wore it wrongly. It looked pretty on his cheeks, like rubies spilling out. The anger that filled Ritsuka at this was impossibly big, and it made him call Soubi mean things and run away to brood alone or susume himself in the easy safety of his school friends. 

Blood was ugly. Wounds were ugly. Ritsuka knew this every time he freed himself from his mother’s ropes and patched himself up from her anger. The bruises were things to hide, to wish away. Not trophies. When Soubi touched the blue-purple under his eye and said he looked beautiful… Well, that was disgusting. At best, people could say ‘despite’. To say ‘because of’ was something insane. 

Even now, his stomach heaves as he pulls a needle and thread out of their med-kit and murmurs a secret to himself, to Soubi beside him: “It looks like there are roses growing out of your skin.” 

“Ritsuka is becoming a poet.” Soubi says, smiling. His eyes are very bright head-on like this.

Ritsuka huffs at him, cheeks flooding with color and nose scrunching, because he still isn’t Soubi’s height--he’s at his chin, now; soon, he’ll be able to see the crown of Soubi’s head without Soubi needing to bend down. There’s precious little certainty in their world, but this is something he knows to be true. 

Ritsuka makes sure the blood is contained to a small puddle as he works. It’s not easy work, but it’s doable. His hands shake, but they don’t shake with the same ferocity they had when applying healing to his own wounds. Being strong for Soubi makes him feel stronger all over. The needle is kind in his fingers. 

“This blood is for Ritsuka.” Soubi says, quietly proud, and it makes Ritsuka’s eyes well. But he isn’t angry. 

“I know. Thanks. But next time, be more careful.”

“For Ritsuka, I will be.” 

It’s not true, even if it isn’t, exactly, a lie. Soubi means it, but Soubi isn’t good at being careful. No one taught him how, and he isn’t interested in learning. He’ll shove Ritsuka behind him in battle, like he did today, and take suffering meant for a Sacrifice. He’ll let Ritsuka touch the delicate skin of his throat even though Ritsuka’s fingers are still adolescent clumsy, and he’ll smoke cigarettes at five AM with the window cracked when he should be sleeping. 

It’s good that Ritsuka is careful enough for the both of them. No one stopped to teach him, either, but, because he wanted to learn, he figured it out himself. The trait was birthed from a sad place, a desire to avoid his mother’s scorn, but it has its uses. 

Soubi said--after Ritsuka found the right questions--that the scars Ritsu-sensei gave him had a purpose. Ritsuka had been upset beyond thought when he first heard it, but now he thinks he understands. Soubi touching his bruises… it’s a happy memory now. 

Yuiko and Kio would cry, if he told them, but Soubi would smile. So Ritsuka does tell him, and Soubi does smile, pleasantly surprised and incapable of his typical slyness. He looks young, strangely sweet. The skin around his lips does the bunching thing that only happens when he’s really happy, and it fills Ritsuka with a warmth that makes him cross his legs and keep his eyes away from Soubi’s too-bright face. 

“There.” Ritsuka says. He nods once, firm. The stitches are awkward and imperfect, but they hold Soubi together just the same. 

“If they had been a bit deeper, they might have scarred.” Soubi says. Ritsuka believes him, because Soubi knows all about which wounds linger and which wounds don’t. 

Soubi eyes the ribbons now adorning his wrists. He flexes, just a bit, testing their give. Ritsuka sends him his blackest glare, and Soubi subsides, eyes crinkling in dumb mischief. The knots Ritsuka bit off with his teeth stay steady. 

Because he’s found the right questions, and can make himself ask them if he tries very hard, Ritsuka tries very hard and asks: “Would you want them to scar?” 

“I wouldn’t mind.” Soubi says. “They would remind me of Ritsuka. And I would see them when painting. That would be nice.”

Ritsuka swallows through the immediate discomfort. He finds it gets easier every time. After the initial wave, he can think, and he thinks on Soubi and his scars—the ones lining his back like tiger stripes, the thorns circling his throat like a fairytale curse. The people who gave Soubi these scars didn’t care that they put them in places he couldn’t, can’t, see them. 

Soubi doesn’t believe in the things he hears, only actions and things he can see. Learning that hurt. It made Ritsuka cry to have to dig his fingers into Soubi’s thorns and block out Seimei with his own fingers, just to get Soubi back. To make sure they couldn’t abandon each other ever again. It was a trial of monumental proportions, yet Ritsuka did it. He left the real Ritsuka to die in the dirt of childhood dreams to become a Sacrifice capable of owning a fighter like Soubi. 

To think that for Ritsu-sensei and Seimei it was no trial at all, as easy as setting a vase on a table… yet still they smashed it… 

Soubi’s hands are gentle on his face, cleaning the scratch and the tears dripping from his chin. “Don’t be sad.” 

“I’m not sad. I’m angry.” And he is, impossibly so. It threatens to eat him alive, this anger. 

Being with Soubi taught him loads of complicated, adult things, like that it’s possible to be angry at a beloved person. Semei should be glad, down in the dirt with the real Ritsuka, or else Ritsuka might really hate him. Only hate him. 

Soubi applies a butterfly bandage to Ritsuka’s temple, the wings tickling his skin like a kiss; it’s how Ritsuka knows there’s love left. 

Ritsuka will spend a little of it on Seimei, who he will never see again, and on his mother, who he will only see in careful, regulated doses; he’ll give more to Yuiko, who doesn’t understand him very well but is good to him anyway, and to Kio, who he thinks of as Soubi’s Yuiko. He will give most of it to Soubi. Soubi needs it. Giving it to somebody who needs it makes him feel needed. 

Expending love makes him have more love, which is something he finds to be paradoxical yet true. Most things relating to Soubi are. 

They put the med-kit away. Ritsuka brews tea, and they drink it together at the kitchen table. Soubi breathes through a cigarette, and, when his head turns to the side to exhale smoke, Ritsuka watches his lips move against the white paper, feeling uncomfortable. Discomfort is typical of being an adult, and Ritsuka is getting closer each day. His voice, when he orders Soubi to toss the ashes, is deeper than ever. 

They sleep in the same bed, because Ritsuka wants it, and Soubi wants it, and Ritsuka no longer feels the need to deny himself the little things. At first, the dip of Soubi’s weight on the mattress felt big and scary, but Soubi was Soubi. He would say dumb words, but, at the end of the day, it was up to Ritsuka to decide. 

Ritsuka decided they would continue. So they did. 

Soubi doesn’t fall into bed, and he’s fingering the black ribbons at his wrists. He would look annoyingly mysterious to the real Ritsuka. To the Ritsuka of now, he just looks fidgety, like he needs something. 

“Sit down on the floor by the bed.” Ritsuka says. He doesn’t add ‘it’s an order!’ anymore. Doing that always made it the opposite. Made any power puff out like smoke. 

Soubi sits. He cradles his wrists close to his chest. The fidgeting has settled down, and his attentions are blunt and obvious. 

“Wrist.” Ritsuka holds out a hand and, again, Soubi folds inside his grasp. The bone transforms the soft skin of Ritsuka’s palm. Carefully, he places his thumb under the knot at the end of the thread, and Soubi’s breath stops. 

It picks up at the next heartbeat, but Ritsuka already has the knowledge he needed. 

Soubi’s eyes close. “Together, in this room... I want it after all. I’d be fine without.” 

“But you do want it.” It’s easier to talk with Soubi below him, facing to the side like this. The crown of his head is a visible, pale blond tuff that Ritsuka wants to pat. “I could… one. The hand you pick up a brush with.”

Soubi’s eyes snap open. He doesn’t turn to face Ritsuka, for which Ritsuka is desperately grateful. 

“It’ll hurt.” 

“I’ll bare it.” Soubi says. The look on his face is bright. Determined. 

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Youji and Natsuo always said Soubi was a weirdo masochist, and Ritsuka, knowing nothing, was inclined to agree with them. When Soubi asked for pain, Ritsuka had thought he wanted what he asked for. But he wanted the thing that came with the pain, because there was always pain, and what he wants, in this case, is a mark that reminds him of Ritsuka, something to make him happy when he’s making himself sad painting butterflies. 

Ritsuka pulls Soubi’s wrist into his lap. He begins picking apart the knot of thread. 

“You’ll get my blood on you.” Soubi says. 

“It’s OK. You’re my fighter; I can handle your blood.” 

“When Seimei…” 

“When Seimei what?” Soubi’s mouth has sealed itself shut, and Ritsuka can’t have that. He misses enough signals when Soubi is talking. “Don’t keep things from me that I should know. I’m your Sacrifice.”

Soubi smiles. The skin around his lips is as smooth as a doll’s. “After he put his name on me, he left the knife he had brought. He said that it was filthy with me on it, so he didn’t want it anymore.”

“I’m not Seimei.” Rituska says, willing himself steady. There will be plenty of time to cry later, to rage, for Soubi to put more bandages on him that feel like kisses. “And we should both be grateful that I’m not.” 

Soubi sags against him, letting Ritsuka move him where he wills. Ritsuka is bright, determined. His hands refuse to shake. He can give Soubi this, a scar with a happy memory. 

The knot unravels under his fingers. Ritsuka pulls the ribbon out of Soubi’s wrist and lets the blood gush sluggishly onto the knees of his sleep pants. On the floor, Soubi’s presence dissolves into a series of harsh gasps through clenched teeth. 

“I’ve got you.” Ritsuka says, his fingers clamped over the freed maw that is Soubi’s wound. He feeds it his touch, refusing to let go. “I should’ve known that to help you I had to hurt you. Soubi has always been contradictory.” He can’t bring himself to call Soubi stupid or dumb, but the other adjectives that come to mind are all too sweet; they make him shy. He can’t bear to be shy now. Perhaps later. 

“Hold me.” Soubi says, the desire subvocalized inside the hurt. 

Ritsuka pushes his cheek into Soubi’s hair, and they hold each other until the bleeding slows to a manageable drip. 

Soubi’s wrist is cleaned and bandaged, the red-stained sheets thrown into the washer. They lay curled around each other on the mattress, Ritsuka’s hand resting possessively over what will be Soubi’s kindest scar. 

The wound later closes into an elegant sideways slash, the first curve in the letter ‘L’.


End file.
